Sunday, March 22

Recapping last week's session:

We went through Chapter 12, Living the Trinity, and Chapter 13, Drunken Sobriety.

Chapter 12: The liturgy reminds me that I've been made to love God "perfectly"...To love God perfectly means to love God fully, with heart, soul, mind, and strength. p.98

The God of the liturgy is a Trinity from beginning ("Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit") to end ("The blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit"). p. 98

Here Galli points out it is important to keep in mind that although we tend to think of the Trinity in terms of doctrine, it is essential, and this is where the liturgy really helps out, to experience "what is hidden in, with, and under the theology" of the Trinity, and that experience "will transform us." p. 99 We are transformed because we are invited, really ushered, into becoming a participant in the personal relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a relationship of perfect love. And it is this experience that can "satisfy the basic yearning of the human heart, which has been created for communion." p. 101

The starting point for the Enlightenment was/is Descartes' proclamation, "I think, therefore I am." "The biblical, liturgical, Trinitarian starting point, by contrast says, "I love, therefore you are. You love, and therefore I am." p. 101 We did not discuss this difference in outlook in any depth, but its implications are significant: the one leads to a focus on the individual as the center and ultimately to excruciating loneliness and alienation, the other to a "profoundly communitarian ethos", a "reciprocation of love". pp. 101-102

"This profoundly communitarian ethos is woven all through the liturgy because the liturgy is profoundly Trinitarian. If we pray it often enough, it will begin to radically shape our lives. We'll start to discover that our primary duty in life is not to find ourselves, not to develop our gifts, nor to make sense of life. Instead we'll realize that we are called to love others so that they can come into existence, while they do the same for us." p. 102

In short we become, as Peter writes (II Peter 1:4), "partakers of the divine nature." p.104

Whew! Ain't that something! And guess what? It is delightfully true...

So can it get any better than that? Well, let's see...

Chapter 13: The liturgy helps us know God with imagination. Not only is it attractive to the mind and engages us intellectually, but it is attractive to the heart and draws us to participate in deeply symbolic acts. More than that it draws us into a knowledge that transcends mind and heart. "To be sure, this deeper knowledge can be enjoyed outside of liturgical worship, but in the liturgy we find poetry and theology and drama and mystery in a way that opens us up to transcendent knowledge in continually fresh ways." p. 106

"Liturgical imagination, though, means to apprehend that which is fully real but is incapable of being apprehended with the mind or heart alone." p. 107

sobrias ebrietas ("drunken" sobriety) -- both "ecstatic, rapturous" and at the same time "measured, ordered,dignified. It is an encounter with the Other which takes the heart out of itself and places it in another center." p. 108

And that to me is the wonder and the beauty of the Christian faith: both...and NOT either...or. Things from a human vantage point seeming to be mutually exclusive, or contradictory, or irreconcilable, are equally true in Christ. Both God and man. Both now and forever. Both flesh and Spirit. Both mercy and truth. Both perfectly just and the justifier of those who have sinned. Frankly the list goes on and on and on. And that's why I love this idea of sobrias ebrietas: drunken sobriety.

Unfortunately we did not find time to consider these things at length. But this chapter is well worth re-reading time and again. "Liturgical worship, because it traffics in words and symbols and holy actions that not only point to God but manifest him, is a unparalleled gift to people who want to know God in the bibilical sense, who want soul intelligence on top of the intelligence of the mind and heart." p. 109

One last quote: "when we enter into liturgical worship, we look to the Spirit, who has been sent by the Father to manifest his Son." pp. 109-110

Peace, 'til next time.